maelia8

Advice for the OP: regards of how educated the person is, I've found that the best friends (and romantic partners) I've ever had are people who do something vastly different from what I do. Since I'm in the humanities, this could mean that the person is a scientist (almost all of my partners or successful dates with other students have been with people in the sciences), or it could mean that they do something absolutely different that isn't related to academics at all (my two best female friends are an opera singer and a children's book author, my best male friend is a musician, and one of my most compatible partnerships was with a cook). I agree with several previous posters that it's more about being a questioning, intellectually interested person than anything else (my last partner was another academic in the humanities, but when I asked him questions about death and philosophy and the big "what ifs," he always stared at me blankly and was totally uninterested). Talking to someone who does something for most of the day that's completely different from what you do is the most stimulating to me because it encourages me to get outside of my little humanities research box and think about something else. I've had cordial relationships with other people in my department and no trouble building up a large circle of acquaintances everywhere I go (and I've moved a LOT in the last seven years), but the friends who stick with me are always those who are the most questing, inquisitive, and willing to talk about anything under the sun (from music genres to philosophical musing about existence to sexual experimentation). If you find someone boring, then there's no requirement to keep making an effort to find something interesting about them - I'd rather have two or three good friends that I can really talk to than a dozen people I can call up for coffee and spend the time in the cafe talking about the weather.

As I'll be attending a state school in California next year, I'm required to establish residency by the end of my first year to get in-state tuition by the beginning of my second year at the university. I was reading through the residency requirements and this passage jumped out at me: "If you are a nonresident student who is in the process of establishing California residency for tuition purposes and you leave California during nonacademic periods (for example, to return to your former or parent's home state), your presence in California will be presumed to be solely for educational purposes, and only convincing evidence to the contrary will rebut this presumption. Students who are in the state solely for educational purposes will NOT be classified as residents for tuition purposes, regardless of the length of stay. Your intent will be questioned if you return to your prior state of residence when the University is not in session." Does this really mean what I think it means, i.e. that I can't go home to visit my family for an entire year, even for Christmas or Thanksgiving (especially not at those times, because they are during "nonacademic periods")? Anybody have experience with California residency who can tell me to what extent this is true? And if so, how do they enforce it? My family is in Oregon just half a day's drive from my school - if I drove up there on a weekend, how would they know that I'd left the state (have the secret residency police question my friends)? Any clarification would be helpful.

If you don't mind my asking, what part of the country are you originally from/what kind of political/social/religious environment are you used to? That might be helpful in understanding just what it is about the community you're in that isn't quite clicking with you.

I can't tell you anything about the universities, but I have visited the cities of Zürich and Konstanz and can tell you a bit about them . Both are beautiful places, so you can't go wrong! Konstanz is smaller and more of a college town, while Zürich has a more bustling, international feel to it. If money is an issue, be aware that Zürich is perhaps the most expensive city in all of Europe and keep that in mind. Neither place has amazing weather in my opinion (lots of drizzling and overcast skies/even fog on Lake Constance in summer, often heavy snow in Zürich through March or April), but both have nice architecture and a pleasant downtown. I speak fluent German (standard German) and have had no difficulties getting around in Switzerland, although I'd probably make an effort to learn some Schweizerdeutsch if I lived there for a long time. Zürich has some delicious but terrifyingly expensive restaurants which I enjoyed during my stay there. It's pretty quiet for a major city, with a very good tram system, and you can live right in the downtown and still be in a quiet, peaceful neighborhood.

Glad that I've been able to help! If you're not feeling sure yet about whether to go to the USA or Germany or even whether you want to do a Ph.D. right now, maybe you should take another year to think it over and see if you can strengthen your application in any way or find out about other scholarships or methods of funding (for example, apply to German universities again and also for DAAD funding so you wouldn't have to worry about getting work). Best of luck to you in making your decision, whatever you decide to do. I'm sure you'll find a way to make it work financially

I think it might be good for you to consider other factors when deciding between the two schools, such as the environment, the price, and the location. All else being equal, go with the school where you think you'll feel most comfortable.

I have never been to Darmstadt (it's about 45 minutes south of where I live in Mainz/Frankfurt), but my friend's brother goes there and he likes it a lot. As a technical university, Darmstadt has quite a good reputation. It's not too far from Frankfurt, where you can go if you want more cultural diversity/better night life and restaurants. The weather in this part of Germany is quite mild and nice (in my opinion, southwestern Germany is the best area to live in terms of temperature). There are a lot of foreign students in Germany in general, and universities make an effort to provide activities and language courses especially for foreign students. I can't speak from personal experience about getting a degree from a technical university since I'm in the humanities, but I've heard that Darmstadt has good labs and that the students have good chances of getting internships at technical firms lined up either during or after their studies. It's usually easy to find a cheap place to live, and the student dorms are especially cheap and very welcoming to international students (I lived in a dorm here where 50% of the students living there were foreigners). There is sometimes mild discrimination in Germany against nonwhite foreigners, especially if they don't speak German fluently, but usually from older people, and it's not something that happens every day. Most people are polite, if not incredibly friendly straight-off. Transportation infrastructure is amazing (most cities, even small ones, have an excellent bus/tram system that's not too expensive with a reduced-price student pass, and large cities also have a subway), and traveling by train or bus is incredibly easy and comfortable. Shopping can be expensive (especially for clothes and food), but the items are of very good quality. As someone from a warmer place with more sunny days, I am not a big fan of German weather, especially in spring and summer (often rainy and humid), but when it snows in winter it's quite beautiful. There are really great student discounts almost everywhere, so make sure to take advantage of them. German bureaucracy is complex and sometimes difficult to navigate (there's a bureau for everything!), but with a bit of patience you'll get through it. It's required to have health insurance in Germany, so you will be encouraged to sign up for the public student health insurance at your university (probably with AOK or TK), which is pretty cheap and has quite good coverage. Cell phone plans are usually quite reasonable here, so if you have a smartphone, cancel your home plan and sign up for a cheap plan here (you can get a limited data plan for a little as 8-10 euros per month). As an American, you can travel to Germany on a tourist visa for up to three months before you have to apply for a long-term student visa, but if you're not a US citizen, you may want to research the visa requirements for citizens of your country. I hope this is helpful! If you have any more specific questions, I'd be happy to answer them

I will be attending a humanities Ph.D. program in the fall (see below), and I honestly don't think that they cared a jot about my quant GRE scores, which were on the low end of average. My verbal score was almost perfect, and that's all they cared about in terms of GRE scores as far as I could tell. Overall, as long as you don't completely bomb quant and are solid in every other area (verbal GRE, SOP, undergrad grades) I wouldn't worry about it.

At my (very small) undergrad institution, unexcused absences counted against your grade; for example, if you had more than 2 unexcused absences, your final grade at the end of the term would be knocked down by half a grade (for example, B+ to B ). Is it similar when you're still attending classes for the Master's requirements of your Ph.D. program? Can your grade in a course be affected by too many absences? Do you just have to email your professor if you're feeling sick one day, or do you have to bring a doctor's note proving your need to stay at home (something that was required at my German university)? I'm not talking about a prolonged illness requiring a leave of absence, but simply a cold or flu that knocks you out for three days or less. In terms of time off: Is it considered kosher to drive up and visit your family on a long holiday weekend if they're within driving distance? My folks will be 6 hours' drive north of me, which is definitely doable for Thanksgiving and Easter. Do people often do this, or is it frowned upon?

I should clarify: for a technical/scientific degree (whether you plan on eventually working in the USA or in Germany), German universities can be regarded as good or better than American ones, but for anything in the humanities or social sciences (if you plan on becoming a professor in the USA), it's probably not a good bet - several people I know who got higher humanities degrees in Germany had to get an additional degree in the USA before they were competitive enough to become a professor/academic in America. That being said, I'm not sure what the situation is if you get a humanities degree and take it with you to another country to seek a job (the degree may be more highly regarded in other countries). @Serpentina02 your friends must have been really lucky not to get caught: being without a visa in Germany as an American student is no joke, and I know someone who was arrested at the airport upon leaving Germany because their visa had expired a few days earlier. Normally you shouldn't be able to open a bank account or get an apartment lease if you can't prove your visa status, so I'm curious as to how they managed that. @awsaf174 It's good that you have your family to sponsor you initially - that means you probably wouldn't have a problem getting a visa - but actually earning 700 euros a month is going to be very tough for you as a student. Like I said, your student visa will normally limit you to earning no more than 400-450 euros "Nebenverdienst" (side job), although you could definitely work under the table so to speak and earn more. I do English tutoring as a side job right now and charge between 10-15 euros per hour depending on whether it's adults or schoolchildren. I tutor about 10 hours per week and make an average of about 450 euros per month doing this. I got the tutoring jobs by putting up posters at the university and the local schools and didn't have a problem finding people who were interested. But like I said, 450 euros per months would basically cover your 300 euro rent plus some of your food costs and nothing else (you still need money for transportation, schoolbooks, clothes, etc.). Perhaps your family could support you 50/50 until you're able to get a scholarship lined up? You could apply for DAAD funding next year, and then you wouldn't have to worry about it anymore - DAAD funding from the German government is usually quite generous.

I can't handle anything with lyrics either - it's too distracting to me. I listen to instrumental soundtracks, new age meditation music, and classical.

If you decide to go the ESL teaching route, I know a lot about Fulbright and have friends in JET and EPIK, so I'd be happy to answer any questions that you have or forward them to my friends. @juilletmercredi Have you ever thought about taking some time off after you finish your final degree to travel internationally or live overseas? I took two years off between finishing my undergrad and going to grad school to live in Germany and teach ESL, and it was one of the best decisions I ever made. Even though it means that I'm starting grad school later and thus also my eventual career later, and that I spent two years doing something that has no relation to my probably future career, living here has given me some great perspective and provided with a level of maturity and life experience that I believe helped to make me a better grad school candidate and better all-around professional worker. Even if you need to take some time to get established in your career, please don't consider your dream of going abroad for an extended time to be over - if you still want it to happen, I'm sure that you'll find a way at some point in the future, even if that means joining the Peace Corps when your kids go off to college

As someone who already spoke German when they started learning Swedish, and having picked up several Danish and Norwegian books to compare, I can tell you that Swedish is (in my opinion) slightly more similar to English than German, but if you already speak German and English, Swedish, Danish, and Norwegian are much easier to learn, as most words are either similar to the English or to the German (with a few exceptions). Swedish and Norwegian are similar enough to be readable by speakers of both languages, although the spoken accent is different enough that they are usually not mutually intelligible. Honestly though, people in Germany and to an even greater extent Norway, Sweden, and Denmark speak good to flawless English, so you would be fine there upon arrival and until you manage to enroll in an immersion language course. Good Swedish/Danish/Norwegian language courses in the USA are few and far between (unless your university specializes in Scandinavian studies), so you'd probably do most of the language learning once you got there.

I'm from the USA and have lived in Germany for 3.5 years (combined total of three time periods), and the experience has been incredibly enriching and informative. I've had the opportunity to travel to a dozen European countries, improve my German to near-perfect fluency, and work on learning/improving my Spanish, French, and Swedish. I didn't find the transition to Europe to be a particularly difficult one culturally or socially, and I feel as at home here as I do in California. That being said, there are definitely challenges. For one thing, unless you work in a scientific/technical field in an industry that is hiring and are well-qualified, you are going to have a hard time finding a job. EU laws prevent member states from hiring non-EU citizens over qualified EU citizens, so unless there's something you can do that an EU citizen can't (something you are superbly qualified for), you will be turned down for the job. I work as an ESL teacher because I'm a native English speaker, one of the few areas in which I am a foreigner have an advantage over a native German. Europe is incredibly expensive, but on the bright side, if you're in a country with a robust economy like Germany or one of the Nordic countries, your salary will also be proportionately generous. If you plan on staying in Europe in the long run, you may need to get special qualification for a job there above and beyond the degree that you hold in North America, which is why most of the foreigners I know here have or are working on getting an advanced German degree (which makes them a much better job candidate here). In order to stay in Europe for more than 3 months, you will have to get a job here and get a work visa, which you can only receive once you have a valid job contract with a firm here. There's a lot of red tape, but it's definitely doable if you're persistent. Since I've moved back and forth between Europe and the USA six times in the last eight years, I've gotten quite good at living in a minimalist style (if it doesn't fit in two suitcases, it gets sold or given away). The longer you live like this, the less attached you become to possessions and the easier it gets to let them go when you move. Perhaps the best way to find out whether living overseas is for you is to go on some sort of short-term exchange, internship, or volunteer opportunity for two or three months in the country of your choice. This would give you the chance to get a feel for the environment, do a crash course in the language, and start figuring out how to go about finding a job and getting a long-term visa, if that is what you still desire after spending a few months there. Every expat goes through cycles of feeling assimilated and feeling somewhat frustrated and alienated, so it's important to give yourself time to adjust and figure out your place in a new country.

There is also the option of contacting current grad students in the program at your university and asking if they can either recommend places to stay or offer you a couch for a week or so before you can move in/while you're looking for a place. Even if they are unable to host you, they might be able to tell you where you can stay cheaply for a couple of weeks. If that's not an option, I'd recommend a short-term sublet through craigslist and arrive a month early, or an extended (2-4 week) airbnb stay - a lot of airbnb rentals reduce the price if you're staying longer than a week.

Table tennis

But are the classes you're struggling with right now (in your last semester) core classes required for your major, or requirements that you're just trying to get out of the way at the last minute? It seems to me like that could make a big difference when the grad admission committees are considering your application.

@pears ditto about the SAD lamp. I live in a place where it doesn't even get that cold, but it is almost always overcast and gets a lot of rain. I suffer a lot from seasonal depression, and the lamp makes a huge difference! If you're used to a lot of clear days every year, it may take a while to get used to gray skies and little sun, so this investment is really worth it if you find out that you get "sun-sick."

I went to a tiny liberal arts college for undergrad, and it was in a suburb of a large city (you had to take a 25-minute bus ride to get to the downtown, and a 15 minute bus ride just to get to a grocery store). Because most of the students initially didn't have cars and because it took so long to get to campus if you chose to live downtown/in a more hip non-university neighborhood, all of the action was on campus, and if you chose to live off-campus you were really missing out if you wanted to have anything to do with other college students. However, in the Fall I will be attending a large research university situated in the heart of the midsize city it inhabits, so living "off campus" still means you can be in the heart of the city and within 10 minutes' walk of the campus. so in this situation, I plan to live off campus for sure. It all depends on the environment/location of the university you're attending in relation to the city it's in.

If your advisor was trying to suggest that freak shows alone would be too broad, then I understand the recommendation to focus on one type of exhibit of the "freak show" variety. I don't see how the pedophile idea is at all related, unless social/sexual deviancy is your area of interest. if it is, then think long and hard about what subfield interests you most, and most importantly, what you might want to continue researching in that area a few years down the road (is this a topic that you will be totally sick of in 5 years and regret attaching your name to?).

At the end of a semester I usually go into hibernation (literally) for about 24 hours, doing nothing but eating and sleeping, and then emerge from my blanket chrysalis as a newly refreshed butterfly. This is my favorite way to transition from an extremely heavy workload to an extremely light one

As long as you can get the students to talk, everything will be fine. if somebody says something completely unfounded or unrelated, gently steer the conversation back in the right direction. Anything's better than deafening silence as you repeatedly rephrase the question. Bring a list of topics so that you can switch if one topic gets stale/nobody has anything to say, and make sure you ask questions in a range of difficulties or somebody will get bored/overwhelmed.

I would send letters to individual teachers who played a special role in your academic development (it would seem a bit rude to me to just send them a mass email or letter), but also a group letter to the office/administration with the instruction to post it in a public place where all the staff can read it if they wish. Either address it to the teachers' lounge or to the administrative office - the school secretary should know where to post it so that everybody can see it.

If you are a teaching assistant or lab assistant, then I would mention it - having a specific job title is always better than just saying "student." I don't' think that it's necessary to have a business card as an M.A. student, but I don't think that having one could hurt.

I would stick with the reasons that you already mentioned in the emails - giving them more information in your SOP seems superfluous, and could even hurt your application. Don't backtrack or leave out anything that you already mentioned though, because that could also come across as devious.